Sci-Fi Revolution (NBC)

astonwest

Writing Fool
Has anyone else seen this new show from NBC? I've only caught the first two episodes (third's on the DVR, waiting)...myself, I think it has some good stuff, but just hasn't won me over. Still reserving final judgment for a few more episodes...

What does everyone else think?
 
Has anyone else seen this new show from NBC? I've only caught the first two episodes (third's on the DVR, waiting)...myself, I think it has some good stuff, but just hasn't won me over. Still reserving final judgment for a few more episodes...

What does everyone else think?
Same here... watch the first two and the third is on the DVR yet.

It is catching my attention but the pace of the first two episodes seems rather slow to me. It actually reminds me a bit of FlashForward in both shows had an event take place, both shows are working towards a premise (what/who caused the flash forward, will the power come back on), both shows are trying to be character driven, but, alas, like FlashForward it seems Revolution is struggling with time filler scenes in order to pad out the episodes leading to the eventual conclusion.

Personally I think they could have taken advantage of the 15 year time gap, in particular the first couple of years right after the event, to use as time filler. Within the first few years the world would have gone through mass panic, riots, looting, starvation, the apparent deaths of the majority of people, and political upheaval. The show has the premise that the entire USA government system, from the top down, has disappeared and the USA flag is now banned. That transition alone could have carried a series.

My impressions so far is that if it lasts a season without being renewed then I won't be as unhappy about it like I have with some other shows.
 
My impressions so far is that if it lasts a season without being renewed then I won't be as unhappy about it like I have with some other shows.
I can't really see the show lasting more than a season, just based on the pacing I've seen so far...they seem to making a lot of (what I'd consider critical) "reveals" way early in the season...

But one never knows...one would have figured Firefly would have lasted several seasons, and poof!
 
Two items turned up that gave it more life. The pendant and the militia marshal. The 'soapy' parts have been a constant worry.
 
Not all of it seems to make logical sense. They could do more with making a coherent story over the sap. Altho, I thought the last episode slightly improved.
 
... the world would have gone through mass panic, riots, looting, starvation, the apparent deaths of the majority of people, and political upheaval. The shows has the premise that the entire USA government system, from the top down, has disappeared and the USA flag is now banned.
NBC has released an image of the map that was shown in the latest episode showing the new political boundaries of the former USA.


See attached. :smiley:
 

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After watching 4 episodes of this bull****... I can only say that's what it is. For one and most importantly, characters are ****ing ******ed! No one acts like a normal human being would, they would've gotten the brother back if no one was so idiotic. No ones motives make really any sense etc.
And other thing that bugs me is that how can humans even be alive when everything electronic has stopped? Like electricity just vanished.
"Without electricity , you wouldn't be reading this article right now. And it's not because your computer wouldn't work. It's because your brain wouldn't work.
Everything we do is controlled and enabled by electrical signals running through our bodies. As we learned in intro physics, everything is made up of atoms , and atoms are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons have a positive charge, neutrons have a neutral charge, and electrons have a negative charge. When these charges are out of balance, an atom becomes either positively or negatively charged. The switch between one type of charge and the other allows electrons to flow from one atom to another. This flow of electrons, or a negative charge, is what we call electricity. Since our bodies are huge masses of atoms, we can generate electricity" -by Julia Layton
So, if electricity stopped, we would die. So this gives us a chance to think that maybe electricity hasn't completely vanished in Revolution. It has already been established in the series that power can be brought back with the pendants(which i'll talk later about). But, why can't they harness the electrical power with solar energy for example? Wind? Water? What did humans use about 100 years ago when electricity started becoming common? I'm not any kind of expert in these things, but I think humans nowadays know how to generate electricity without, you know, having electricity, like 100 years ago. I highly doubt earth would become this dystopia if power went down. Of course it would set us back some years, but governments falling, no solution to anything, just start living like in stone age. That could never happen.
But if none of these things actually are possible, like every single tiny bit of power that runs through the ground and living being just goes away, then every living being would be dead.
Yeah, I know that it's just a TV show, but it just bugs me so much and this major plot hole just makes the stupidity of characters just more apparent.
And about the pendants, the damn pendants. The black lady used the pendant to power up her computer... ok, sure. How in the hell does the electricity run through underground lines for miles to wherever the other person is, when it's clear that the pendants range isn't that big?
And why the hell do the villains use muskets!? WTF!?!? They can't make bullets without electricity so they go back to some 18th century weaponry? This is where I just gave up. Sure, they probably couldn't make bullets for some newer weapons, but how about going to some old revolver and rifles? Much faster to reload, higher accuracy and everything is just better, and they could make bullets for them because people also did before knowledge of harnessing that electricity to use in daily lives.
Setting is interesting and vistas beautifully done, but plot holes are just massive and characters are annoying, stupid, generic and cliched and no one is relatable. They clearly didn't think almost nothing through when writing this piece of ****. Nothing is realistic even in its own universe and it just contradicts itself without explaining why these things are the way they are.
 
Sending the niece in to fight that dude to save her brother made no sense at all. I thought he was supposed to be a general. Even I would have made a saner decision [with no military training].
 
@Stebsis. Let's look at the pendants. They appear to allow a localised field where electronics will work. So, by this maybe we assume that a machine is in operation which is deliberately putting out a field where nothing works. And that this field is programmable and works to stop machines, but not the electrical impulses in humans brains.

We have to ask why this has been done? Is a radicalised individual or group thinking that the government must collapse, and the population must be reduced? Are they living in the past and believe that technology is destroying culture? Maybe this covers the musket scenario? But this seems weird when there must be masses of modern weapons all over the US, and not too many working muskets in museums. Can no one make the firing caps in modern ammunition without electricity?

Yes, I understand the frustration, but with the appearance of the pendants that create those localised fields allowing electrical equipment to operate there appears to be more to the situation and what the writer exactly made up for this situation is still waiting to appear.

It could very well be that the writer has shot him/herself in the foot by making this too complicated, or not easily explainable.
 
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I've been enjoying the latest ones, though I thought it was pretty dumb to kill off one of the (what I would have considered) major characters only a few episodes in.
 
The 2nd season of Revolution starts tonight at 10:00PM on NBC following The Voice. The season opener picks up right where the 1st season finale ends, with Monroe getting a working device to extend the power of the pendants to a greater range allowing the use of military vehicles.
 
Heh heh. I watched the first two episodes, shown here on Friday night.

Stebsis identified the main problem I had with whole damned premise; and Tim's explanation, while interesting, is not sufficient to make me overlook the hole in the scenario.

That said, this is a J.J. Abrams production. I had no great faith that this new offering from his stableyard of mediocrity would hold water any better than did Lost. Like a lot of such endless series, any explanation will be postponed until the "last" episode. Since we all know the last episode of a series always comes at the end of the season during which the suits in charge of network cancel the show it is obvious that any finale will be lame and inadequate.

Therefore, Revolution -- like Lost before it -- will appeal to people who like to watch corny soap operas but don't admit it because they are too embarrassed; people who like sword fighting; people who have nothing better to do than watch a drama where the characters' behaviour is beyond belief.

In short this show sucks like an industrial vacuum cleaner and I won't be watching again. :rolleyes:
 
I like sword fighting :P

I've only watched the first episode so far.... (and for the record I enjoyed Lost up until season 3 when it started getting silly). I like shows that build up a story and keep you asking questions.. i certainly don't think these shows appeal to "people who watch corny soap operas" - since I don't and I like these kind of shows... shows like this generally appeal to people who don't want to watch throw away felgercarb and like to concentrate on what's going on in each episode instead of it being on for background noise and IQ lowering - which is what I view soap operas as being all about.... you're actually quite insulting about everything, Mirelly :P

With all that said, the acting is pretty bad in Revolution, but I was pre-warned about that (thanks Kev!)... as well as JJ Abrams it also has Kripke from Supernatural involved, so there's hope.
 
... That said, this is a J.J. Abrams production. I had no great faith that this new offering from his stableyard of mediocrity would hold water any better than did Lost. Like a lot of such endless series, any explanation will be postponed until the "last" episode. Since we all know the last episode of a series always comes at the end of the season during which the suits in charge of network cancel the show it is obvious that any finale will be lame and inadequate.
In defense of the show (hey, it's growing on me now having watched the entire first season & starting the second) the pace of the show picks up a lot faster as the season progresses and, in direct response to viewer complaints like you mentioned, the producers have vowed to not hold off on key answers.

Knowing now that the UK is only on season 1 I'll try not to consciously give any spoilers but I can say that if you keep watching the picture will come together as to what the pendants are for, who created them & why, and who the major 'bad guy' is (or will be). Most viewers will then make an educated guess as to the cause of the blackout by the end of season 1 and, so far, the upcoming previews for season 2 seem to confirm the obvious guess.
 
I'm afraid I have a very jaded opinion of USian TV SF. Shows like Star Trek and Stargate were successful because they were firmly rooted in the genre: series. Each episode was fully self-contained. Both series succumbed to the temptation to resort to a hybrid serial format with story arcs which spanned whole seasons and even bridged from season to the next. This made casual viewing less attractive, and it certainly shows in the historical legacy. Star Trek (ToS & TNG) remain legendary and are constantly being shown all around the world. DS9 and Enterprise very much less so. Voyager is the filling in that particular sandwich. The same is true for Stargate. As RDS started to look his age, SG1 needed new younger blood to keep the franchise going. Sadly RDS, as an exec producer, allowed the franchise to go down the route of serialisation via complex story arcs.

It's that specific disease of the genre -- the god-awful story arc which turns a series into a serial -- which leads me to hurl the insulting "soap opera" accusation.

The traditional soap opera is written and produced with no intention of finding and presenting an "ending".

I am sure that the producers of shows like Lost, V, Revolution, et al, began with good faith in the germ of an idea for an ending. The trouble is that if commercially successful (which says little if anything about the actual quality) a show can continue for half a dozen series and in the process inject so many twists and turns in the overall story line, that the original good faith ending becomes less and less acceptably compliant with all the overall story.

I was not intentionally aiming to be insulting to those who enjoyed the show. I like corny soap operas and, yes, I am a little shy of admitting that at times. I like a good soap opera because it doesn't challenge me to require a complete ending in the way that movie or a novel does. It was the commerce-driven USian TV show-makers and networks I was being rude about. And now I must congratulate the US for creating at least one successful "serial": 24. It was perfect. You knew what you were getting from episode one: 24 episodes which would culminate in a complete resolution of the main story of series, plus a teaser-ending to hook you into wanting another series. Epic win!

Lost lost me after the twin episode premiere and Revolution has done the same; in both cases for the same reason that I am unlikely to find it fascinating enough to stick with it to the bitter end and risk major disappointment with a hashed-up denouement.
 
And yet I found 24 to be completely unrealistic and I detest soap operas - they have far more ridiculous storylines than any sci fi show I've ever watched, even the truly terrible ones. So you're not being rude about tv showmakers and networks, you're insulting everyone who enjoys something you don't. You might want to think about that ;)

Back on topic, I'm happy to give Revolution a chance, since it's supposed to be escapist fantasy/sci fi and it's not promising to be something it's not.
 
I also thought 24 was a terrible show, and completely unrealistic...I do agree however that from the beginning you knew what you were going to get, thankfully I noticed the boredom ahead of time and marked it as not worth watching ;)


Revolution i'm not yet convinced about, I am yet to watch episode 2 but I have to say I didn't immediately hate it, but then that's also true of lost, I gave it two whole series before finding it so increasingly annoying that I gave up on it completely.
For the record though, JJ Abrams I have no issues with, hell he gave us the Star Trek reboot film, which was Excellent ;)
 
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